Yes, it can. That's the max all the roamios can take without having Weaknees finagle with the larger drives to get them to work.

Okay. I bought the Plus thinking I needed the midlevel model to upgrade to a 3TB drive. I suppose it accommodates the 3.5 drives just fine then.

What real advantage does the plus have over the base model? A better resale value? I know there are 6 tuners instead of 4, but I'm not even sure my cable companies M-cards can handle 6 tuners simultaneously.

What real advantage does the plus have over the base model? A better resale value? I know there are 6 tuners instead of 4, but I'm not even sure my cable companies M-cards can handle 6 tuners simultaneously.

I know I don't have all that many posts, but I did find this this great comparison of the models here before I bought my Roamio Basic.

Okay. I bought the Plus thinking I needed the midlevel model to upgrade to a 3TB drive. I suppose it accommodates the 3.5 drives just fine then.

What real advantage does the plus have over the base model? A better resale value? I know there are 6 tuners instead of 4, but I'm not even sure my cable companies M-cards can handle 6 tuners simultaneously.

I wasn't sure about RCN's M-cards either, but (whether they knew it or not) it works like a charm!

those who are asking a difference between models, have you visited the tivo.com site?https://tivo.com/shop/roamio has a comparison of all 3, it's really down to built in MoCA adapter, mobility streaming without needing a tivo stream, and tuners.
I'm not counting the initial HD space as well thats why you're in this thread

those who are asking a difference between models, have you visited the tivo.com site?https://tivo.com/shop/roamio has a comparison of all 3, it's really down to built in MoCA adapter, mobility streaming without needing a tivo stream, and tuners.
I'm not counting the initial HD space as well thats why you're in this thread

There's one other difference not in that table. The Plus & Pro both have Gigabit Ethernet. The basic model is only 100 Megabit.

Also anyone have any idea what this line means?:

Code:

Works with Built in Built in N/A

My guess is that it is supposed to be "Works with Stream" and that there should be a green dot under the "Roamio", pushing the "Built in" entries so they are under the "Pro" and "Plus" and the "N/A" so it is under the "Cable DVR*" column.

Okay. I bought the Plus thinking I needed the midlevel model to upgrade to a 3TB drive. I suppose it accommodates the 3.5 drives just fine then.

What real advantage does the plus have over the base model? A better resale value? I know there are 6 tuners instead of 4, but I'm not even sure my cable companies M-cards can handle 6 tuners simultaneously.

Better/proven platform form factor, six tuners, built in MoCa and streaming, 1 TB drive, RF remote, plus whatever. Any will handle a 3TB drive. The Basic is a cut rate, entry level model stuffed into a new, small box. Unless seriously strapped for cash or needing OTA, I wouldn't touch it for a four to five year product cycle investment.

Better/proven platform form factor, six tuners, built in MoCa and streaming, 1 TB drive, RF remote, plus whatever. Any will handle a 3TB drive. The Basic is a cut rate, entry level model stuffed into a new, small box. Unless seriously strapped for cash or needing OTA, I wouldn't touch it for a four to five year product cycle investment.

On the flip side, I would not invest in the models that did NOT offer any ability to get FREE HD programming with the highest-quality picture from an OTA antenna. With the Base Roamio, you're not absolutely locked into a monthly fee cable connection. You can have the best picture quality available, without cable's compression.

If the Plus offered OTA, it would probably be a no-brainer decision; but, the exclusion of this most important feature making it a universal box for ALL users, not just cable subscribers, puts the Base Roamio in a position better for the long-term and wider audience appeal.

And how much of the MOST RECENT thread activity has anything to do with "Hard Drive Upgrade Info"?

There's less-focused threads for things not related to Roamio HDD Upgrade info, and there's always Private Messages, if you want to pick somebody's brain about every OTHER little thing.

__________________
*Coming in 2016: TiVo introduces OneTiVo with OneWay - There will no longer be any pesky choices to make. TiVo will determine what you watch, when, in what order, and content source.

There's one other difference not in that table. The Plus & Pro both have Gigabit Ethernet. The basic model is only 100 Megabit.

Also anyone have any idea what this line means?:

Code:

Works with Built in Built in N/A

My guess is that it is supposed to be "Works with Stream" and that there should be a green dot under the "Roamio", pushing the "Built in" entries so they are under the "Pro" and "Plus" and the "N/A" so it is under the "Cable DVR*" column.

Better/proven platform form factor, six tuners, built in MoCa and streaming, 1 TB drive, RF remote, plus whatever. Any will handle a 3TB drive. The Basic is a cut rate, entry level model stuffed into a new, small box. Unless seriously strapped for cash or needing OTA, I wouldn't touch it for a four to five year product cycle investment.

Perhaps - but by design, we have just one TV system in the house -
its very high end, but just one, so there is no need to stream to others sets around the house or on the internet -
a $150 box plus the cost to upgrade the drive works it all works out just fine. Wifi transfers at 30Mbs is great too.

Plus we have a TON of broadcast stations in the Wash/Baltimore area -
if we ever drop FIOS we still have MUCH potential viewing with the base Roamio.

I'm not a hard drive expert by any means. I had an old Seagate Barracuda 1.5 TB laying around and I threw it into a base Roamio. It certainly appears to be working fine as suggested in is thread, but do any of you experts foresee any possible future issues?

I'm more talking issues with the "Barracuda" line with maybe heat, noise, etc as compared to the WD green and red A/V drives most seem to be using. I think I read here not to use the black drives, so just curious if there's any of those type of things with barracudas.

I'm more talking issues with the "Barracuda" line with maybe heat, noise, etc as compared to the WD green and red A/V drives most seem to be using. I think I read here not to use the black drives, so just curious if there's any of those type of things with barracudas.

Ive have used nothing but Barracuda's in all my Tivo's since the Series 1, and have NEVER had a drive failure or issue with them. I used the 7200 rpm, except for the last 2TB unit, and I believe it is a 5900 rpm "green" version.

Ive have used nothing but Barracuda's in all my Tivo's since the Series 1, and have NEVER had a drive failure or issue with them. I used the 7200 rpm, except for the last 2TB unit, and I believe it is a 5900 rpm "green" version.

Thanks. I forgot to mention mine is the 7200 rpm as well. Does that make a difference?

I'm more talking issues with the "Barracuda" line with maybe heat, noise, etc as compared to the WD green and red A/V drives most seem to be using. I think I read here not to use the black drives, so just curious if there's any of those type of things with barracudas.

A Black, and probably any 7200RPM drive, is "overkill", in that a 5400 is plenty fast enough for a TiVo, and the greater spindle speed means more heat, and since it probably takes a little more current to go a little faster, that's a little more heat coming off of the power supply as well.

But I've been successfully using some 1TB Blacks (with appropriate IDE/SATA adapters) in a couple of S2 DTs for about 3 years now.

However, there was enough room in them to add an extra fan, and the older IDE hard drive power connection made it easy to get power to the extra fan.

The Blacks are good, but they run "toasty".

The WD20EURS works quite nicely in S3s, and, from what I hear, in S4s, so I'd be tempted to try a WD30EURS if I had a TiVo that'd take a 3TB drive.

Other than more heat it shouldn't. The lower rpm drives are more than capable of dealing with at least a dozen concurrent HD read/write streams.

The WD drives are rated for 12 concurrent streams while the Seagate drives are rated for 16 concurrent HD streams. The seagate A/V drives are 5900 rpm. The WD A/V drives must be a little slower.

Those stream ratings are for when the ATA Streaming Command Set extensions are active. They mean nothing, when the host either doesn't support them, and/or doesn't enable them.

The drive makers have you drinking their marketing Kool-Aid, if you think those numbers correlate to a TiVo, which just writes everything as standard data. I wish I had copies to make a time-lapse slide show presentation of how many new applications the drive makers have targeted, since the first AV drives hit the market...

I agree with the fact that a 5400/5900 RPM drive with even a SATA-2 interface, is still far more than a six-tuner consumer TV DVR even needs, mostly due to increased platter storage density, and improved technology to read and write to those high storage density platters.

Why add more heat, and more current draw, than you need to? It also make no sense to put a 7200RPM drive in. Drives that spec-out "streams" in a context that doesn't even apply to TiVo, are just marketing tactics, that some are easily drawn to, but not necessary.

I'm all for getting an AV-rated Green, or an AV-rated Red NAS drive, if it's because the price is right, and a longer warranty period. Otherwise, it's pointless (other than bragging rights over having a drive that can't even use its own potential, crammed into your TiVo).

__________________
*Coming in 2016: TiVo introduces OneTiVo with OneWay - There will no longer be any pesky choices to make. TiVo will determine what you watch, when, in what order, and content source.

Thanks for all the replies and "techno babble" guys! While I do love me some "techno babble", the ONLY reason I used the 1.5TB Barracuda 7200 rpm drive was because I had it here for FREE and all the other solutions would cost me money, so that is why I asked the question. All I wanted to know was whether my FREE increased TiVo storage capability would end up NOT being so free in the near future if it caused expensive issues and fixes down the road. If it isn't deemed that it will, I will save the cash and just use it.

I am not a TIVO engineer, I've just owned a couple over the last 6 years ...

That said - I'd want to use a NEW drive to increase capacity - otherwise, if you use a used drive, you have a greater potential of the drive failing sooner and lunching all your content.

I don't think anyone can absolutely say using a Barracuda drive will overheat the TIVO causing other failures ... or wear down a power supply sooner ...

There is a school here that says any change from the stock configuration has the potential to be a problem ... as always, if you change out your drive, YOU are the one taking such a risk, if there is one ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarperVision

Thanks for all the replies and "techno babble" guys! While I do love me some "techno babble", the ONLY reason I used the 1.5TB Barracuda 7200 rpm drive was because I had it here for FREE and all the other solutions would cost me money, so that is why I asked the question. All I wanted to know was whether my FREE increased TiVo storage capability would end up NOT being so free in the near future if it caused expensive issues and fixes down the road. If it isn't deemed that it will, I will save the cash and just use it.

I am not a TIVO engineer, I've just owned a couple over the last 6 years ...

That said - I'd want to use a NEW drive to increase capacity - otherwise, if you use a used drive, you have a greater potential of the drive failing sooner and lunching all your content.

I don't think anyone can absolutely say using a Barracuda drive will overheat the TIVO causing other failures ... or wear down a power supply sooner ...

There is a school here that says any change from the stock configuration has the potential to be a problem ... as always, if you change out your drive, YOU are the one taking such a risk, if there is one ...

Well said!

However, the thing that many often overlook, is LONGEVITY.

There's more to this than "It works fine right now, running my 7200RPM black (or other high-performance) drive".

The cooling fans in TiVos are known for failing (although some call making excessive noise "failing"), or lessening the amount of airflow (reducing the cooling efficiency) they are supposed to provide. Although, the Roamio hasn't been out long enough to know how well the fan performs (when components are changed to ones that operate hotter), and/or how long it will last (having to run faster, to compensate, tends to shorten the life of a fan). In either case, it's more than the drive that will run hotter. More than likely, the over-spec drive will be the component that fails first, with the power supply second for probability of potential damage, or shortened life. As for the rest of the TiVo, it will likely just become unstable, and/or shut itself down, to protect itself (if airflow is reduced, stops, or the internal temperature is increased).

Since a base Roamio has an external power supply, it's an exception to what I said above regarding the power supply being cooled by the internal TiVo fan. But, it may still have a potential to fail sooner, IF the drive in use is drawing more current than the margin the power supply is designed to deal with, as that will still increase the operating temperature inside the fully enclosed wall-wart power supply, and/or increase the amount of stress to its components.

Remember, Green and Green AV drives are often used in tightly enclosed, non ventilated external drive enclosures. Try running a high performance drive in a sealed enclosure like that, and see how long the drive lasts.

Even the Green/Green AV drives, when used in a sealed external enclosure, tend to fail much more quickly, which is why most who have been around these forums and taken in a lot of posts, will have seen that people have a lot of negative experiences using DVR expander drives, and will choose to try and stick to one internal drive, and not risk losing everything due to the external failing.

I have nothing to gain, or lose, by staying silent and letting things play out, or by periodically taking the time to comment on these matters. I just like people to be informed.

If anybody thinks what I say is "tech-babble", try reading through all the different drive data sheets/white papers (not just the marketing materials), and you will then realize I have simplified as best I can, without loosing the true meaning of it all.

__________________
*Coming in 2016: TiVo introduces OneTiVo with OneWay - There will no longer be any pesky choices to make. TiVo will determine what you watch, when, in what order, and content source.

Last edited by nooneuknow : 12-02-2013 at 01:16 AM.
Reason: a few clarifications